"Being an activist is the rent we pay for being on the planet." Alice Walker

On the Road to Disenfranchisement: Suppressing the Vote with Dirty Tricks, Intimidation, and the Courts

If you've been paying attention at all, you'll know that both the RNC and DNC are pulling out all the stops to allegedly ensure a fair election. Accusations of voter fraud and intimidation are flying fast and furious though and it's up to the us individual citizens to do everything we can to prevent the election from being tainted by the political muscle of either party. ISOU posted, ranted, got attacked, and gave back on this topic a few days ago. It's still a hot one.

The law of unintended consequences has come home to roost, given the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002. This act allows voters whose names aren't on local rolls to vote using provisional ballots. Election officials later determine whether or not the provisional ballot counts. A lot of the state level RNC/DNC activity is based on the use of provisional ballots, particularly for voters who go to the wrong polling place. The states' positions on this are inconsistent. Federal courts have ruled that states may enforce the requirement for voter's to cast ballots at the correct precinct. And this is just one of a number of issues. New 27 states will only count provisional ballots if they are cast in the appropriate district. By law, provisional ballots cannot be counted until after election day - a key factor in the possibility that we won't know who won be the end of election day.

A very rough statement of what each party is doing would look something like this: The Republicans smell something fishy in the level of new voter registrations the Dems have brought in and are mounting legal challenges to those registrations as well as polling-place observers to challenge new voters. They think there's outright fraud going on. Democrats are suing to stop the Republicans from challenging the eligibility of voters. The Dems are charging that its outright voter intimidation and it violates federal law. Beyond this, unknown shadowy groups are stepping outside the bounds to try to depress voter turn-out. Going beyond the rough statement, here's what I've found.

NOTE to Return Visitors: I've rearranged the state information so the states are listed in alphabetical order.

Florida
Democrats have been unsuccessful in efforts to ensure that ballots cast in the wrong precinct are counted.

The state has no standards for election officials to use to determine if a voter is eligible to vote.

A federal judge ruled that the state election officials don't have to process incomplete registration applications, which apparently number in the thousands.

Florida students, perhaps as many as 4000, have discovered that their party registration and addresses were unknowingly changed. Party doesn't matter, but if their address is wrong then they won't be listed on the voter lists at the their polling place and they'll have to use a provisional ballot - which may not count.

58,000 absentee ballots for Broward County residents were "lost in the mail". They're being resent, but the timing is very tight.

NEW Republicans claim that as of last Thursday, 925 felons had voted illegally in early voting or had requested absentee ballots (felons are not allowed to vote in Florida). They also claim that 14,000 felons are registered to vote despite being ineligible.

Iowa
The Democratic state's attorney general declared that ballots cast in the wrong precinct must be counted. Republicans sued to overturn that decision, claiming that counting such votes could create confusion, uncertainty, voting irregularities and ultimately election day chaos. The secretary of state said that the votes will not be counted if the race isn't close.

Ohio
The courts have ruled that ballots cast in the wrong precinct can't be counted.

The GOP originally challenged roughly 35,000 registrations but the courts shut down those challenges. The Summit county hearing on the challenged voters was particularly embarrassing (see transcript excerpts here).

UPDATED Republicans plan to challenge 23,000 voters at their polling place. In two counties, the Democratic Party sued to prevent polling-place witnesses from questioning voters' identities. A ruling on this suit was handed down on Monday (11/1) morning. The judge banned political party challengers from Ohio polling places. The Republicans plan to appeal the ruling. UPDATE II The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the lower court ruling and unlimited numbers of poll watchers will be allowed in polling places in Ohio. Challengers cannot, however, use the list of names based on undeliverable/returned mail. A request to the US Supreme Court was denied by Justice Stevens, who wrote that "the allegations of abuse made by the plaintiffs are undeniably serious -- the threat of voter intimidation is not new to our electoral system." He determined, however, that the information presented to him made it impossible to determine the validity of the claims. (Houston Chronicle)

Republican secretary of state issued a statement recommending that no registration challengers be allowed in polling places, but the Attorney General, also a Republican, rejected that recommendation. These two men are expected to be future competitors for the governor's office. (NYT)

In Lake County, voters who registered through Democratic and NACCP drives received a memo on fake Board of Elections letterhead telling them that they could not vote. (See here for a scan of the letter and information on the Lake County response and more.)

In Cleveland, voters got phone calls telling them their polling place had changed when it hadn't. And people alleging to represent the Board of Elections began showing up at doors illegally offering to take their absentee ballot to the election office.

NEW Workers at the largest democratic Toledo phone bank claim that their phone lines were down and that the phone company told them that the lines were deliberately cut. (via DailyKos)

NEW There's a new blog entirely devoted to the topic of voter suppression in Ohio.

Michigan
The US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that a ballot cast in the wrong precinct can't be counted.

NEW Voters in the Ann Arbor area received calls telling them to mail their absentee ballots to the wrong address, prompting the secretary of state to put out a statement in mid-October on the correct mailing address.

NEW In Detroit, the NAACP has gone to court to keep the polls open, alleging initimdation of minority voters.

Minnesota
The state's Division of Homeland Security recently sent out a flier telling poll workers how to spot a "homicide bomber" in the voter line.

Missouri
Democrats have been unsuccessful in efforts to ensure that ballots cast in the wrong precinct are counted.

Nevada
A voter registration group, Voters Outreach of America, which was funded the the RNC has been credibly accused of throwing out perhaps thousands of registrations from Democrats. Secretary of state said that an investigation showed no evidence of organized fraud, but some individuals had forged documents with fictitious names and addresses for personal gain (employees were paid for the number of registrations they turned in, and faked them for money).

NEW Elections officials have reported receiving calls from 15-20 voters, all Democrats, reporting phone calls that erroneously informed them that their polling place had been changed. (Las Vegas Review Journal, 11/02/04)

New JerseyNEW In Camden County, by 10 am over 50 people had already appeared before a district judge after being turned down at the polls. In the last election, only 20 people appeared before a judge over the course of the whole day.

New Mexico
For months, voter registration at medical centers and clinics serving Native Americans was suspended by the Indian Health Service of HHS. The ban was lifted in early October, but only after untold numbers of people were unable to register.

Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania college students also found that their party affiliation and addresses had been mysteriously changed, increasing the likelihood that they'd end up using provisional ballots that might not get counted.

In Pittsburgh, fliers have been handed out in a local mall and mailed directly to homes announcing that due to high voter turn-out, the election had been extended by one day. Republicans were to vote on Tuesday, Democrats on Wednesday.

Both parties expect problems on election day due to challenges to new voters' registrations, particularly in Philadelphia. The Republican speaker of the PA House was recently criticized for saying his strategy was to "keep the numbers down in Philadelphia". He somehow thinks he can convince us that "keep the numbers down" means encouraging Republicans to vote.

NEW Republicans claim that of the 130,000 letters they sent out congratulating newly registered voters, 10,000 were returned because either the individual had died or the address was "nonexistent". They claim that this shows that Democratic-aligned groups committed fraud. UPDATE The Republicans released the following information about the 10,000 returned pieces of mail: 310 were returned because the house was vacant or abandoned; 5 because the person was in jail; 3,329 stamped "attempted not known"; 1,172 as "not deliverable to address"; 130 as "moved"; 35 with forwarding addresses; and 15 whose recipients were dead. Republicans plan to use this list to challenge voters at the polls.

NEW Democratic officials in Philadelphia have threatened to file federal lawsuits against individual poll challengers who violate citizens' voting rights through harassment or intimidation.

NEW The top election administrator in Philadelphia, a Democrat, accused state Republicans of sending a letter to poll workers instructing them to check and compare voter signatures at will. State law doesn't allow such checks "at will". The election administrator claims the letter was sent in order to suppress the vote and has said he'll go to court over it.

NEW Republicans charge that the top election administrator in Philadelphia is obstructing their efforts to prevent fraud by not giving them the list of absentee voters.

NEW Republicans claim that voters in Western PA (GOP base) were receiving phone calls intended to scare them away from the polls. Additionally, elderly voters in GOP-heavy Lancaster and York counties in central PA were also reported to have received phone calls telling them they would not be allowed to vote and telling them not to go to the polls.

NEW 600 voters had their registrations rejected for failure to designate a party affiliation on their registration forms, in violation of state and federal law. The PA Governor warned counties that the rejections could result in a loss of election funding if they turned those voters away. Later, a Delaware County judge restored those voters to the rolls.

NEW A federal judge refused an emergency request from Republicans Curt Weldon (US House Rep) and Stephen Barrar (PA state rep) to impound absentee ballots received from prison inmates. A hearing on this has been scheduled for next week.

NEW The Drudge Report inaccurately reported that voting machines in Philadelphia already had 2000 votes recorded before the polls opened. The misinformation was based on someone reading a "total votes ever cast" reading as "votes cast today". (TPM)

South CarolinaUPDATED Voters in Charleston County have received a fake letter allegedly from the NAACP. The letter warns voters that if they show up at the polls and have unpaid parking tickets or unpaid child support, they are subject to arrest. The letter also says voters must have a credit check, provide two forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter registration card and a handwriting sample. (Click here to view a scan of the letter.)

South DakotaNEW Republican challenger Thune lost in court to incumbent Sen. Daschle in a suit that charged Republicans with voter intimidation tactics targeting Native Americans. The judge ruled that Republican poll workers in Lake Andes were intimidating Native American voters and issued a restraining order preventing them from writing down license plate numbers and following Native Americans from polling places. Republicans blame the finding on cronyism. (Argus Leader)

West VirginiaNEW Cell phone calls traced back to the Eastern Panhandle Republican Headquarters were made to democrats telling them that they were not registered to vote, when in fact they were. (via DailyKos)

Wisconsin
In Milwaukee's black neighborhoods, there's a flier being distributed that tells readers that they can't vote in the presidential election if they've already voted in any election this year (like the primary). It threatens ten years in prison and having your children taken away from you if you violate this election law. The flier is allegedly from the "Milwaukee Black Voters League". (See the flier here. Visit ISOU for blogosphere coverage.)

NEW From Mick's comment: Republicans in Milwaukee are demanding that city officials demand identification from 37,000 registered voters that they claim have "questionable addresses". The city attorney claims that they've already identified 'hundreds and hundreds' of addresses on the GOP list that are valid. Pubs plan to challenge voters at the polls if ID isn't required by election officials. While it's clear that some of the addresses on the list are invalid, many are not and the GOP claims that something as minor as a missing apartment number should invalidate the registration. Additionally, the question has been raised on why the same analysis of the registration list wasn't done for heavily Republican districts.

NEW In Milwaukee, Republicans arrived at their offices to find that someone had slashed the tires on more than two dozen rental vans and cars that were assembled to ferry voters to the polls, police said. (MSNBC)

PLEASE
I'm sure this list is not comprehensive - but time is too short to continue researching this so I thought I'd post what I have. If you know of any efforts to disenfranchise or intimidate voters, please let us know by adding a comment. If you've got a citation for the information, that would be helpful (it happened to you, it was in your local paper, et al). I'll do my best to regularly update this post and indicate new content when it's added.

Comments

Milwaukee: It's probably part of the same effort, but the AP reports that the GOP is demanding that Milwaukee officials challenge the credentials of 37,000 voters they have on a 'list'--sounds like the Ohio registered-mail scam.

VA Refinance is the best for you, you may request advice from a VA mortgage specialist online today!
Learn more about or start the process now.
Get Started With Your VA Loan RequestProperty Location:
Loan Type: VA Home Purchase VA Mortgage Refinance informationWhether you are refinancing your home loan to payoff debt,